O Death
by SmileysBasis2
Summary: What do the Comatose Catalyst, the Marked One, the Epileptic Seer, the Lissome Witch of Augustine, the Cursed Viscount of Avize, the Pastiche Demon, the Marrakesh Jinn, the Bayou Warlock Outlaw, and the Amnesiac Vampire have in common? The Sempiternal. AU/Holiday tease!


**O Death**

**chapter one**: prologue / the comatose catalyst

**disclaimer**: i do not own sailor moon or gundam wing or the brief lyrics i use.

* * *

**AN:** Happy Holidays! So there are a few things I need to tell you guys about this story:

**1.** I have to give you guys a brief explanation of the world I've got set up here. It's simply called The World and exists as a single plot of land, surrounded by a smattering of islands. It has my own fantastical flare but within it are countries similar to our own—_named_ after our own. You will hear references to France (which will be a country in the Central Expansion (explained later)), and Marrakesh, China, and our story starts out in a town called Juban. Do not think of these as the places you know! But don't forget them either :) Hope this makes sense haha. Also kind of in conjunction with something like the Hunger Games or the Maze Runner, there are parts of The World that are seemingly stuck in the past, and parts that are far, far into the future.

**2.** Name changes!

Aurelia "Raye" Mary Crawford

Violet "Lita" Savannah Sinclair

Marianna "Mina" Mae Hammond

Amelia "Amy" Jane Clearwater

Triton "Trowa" Bloom

Heero Fulton

Duo Greer

Wufei LaMare

Quatre Winner

**3.** This story was completely and utterly inspired by the song **O Death** by **Jen Titus**. I highly suggest listening to it once before or while you read the first chapter so you can really get a feel for the vibe I'm going for with this story. If you can, listen to it with bass…it's freaking amazing ;)

**4.** Enjoy!

* * *

/ **prologue** /

* * *

To The World's most endearing elation and disappointment, magic was real. It was real not in the way of boastful covens, clans, or loud, sparkly explosions of titillating power but in a less, more meager existence. Like geniuses the Expresser's (as magic users were labeled) existed, generally shy and keeping their ability hidden except when necessary. Their existence was only disappointing in the sense that, as with any power, it was given to and manifested in both good and evil forms. And as with any inexplicable issue of life and nature there was a touted origination story, old and rumored: It was a story told of three great men and three imperial boxes.

Before the landmasses had separated and settled, three kings ruled over what existed of mankind.

The first king, the ruler of the North, was said to have been the kindest of men, a gracious ruler who cared deeply for his constituents and the land that he ruled. On what was now called the Day of Reckoning he was bestowed a gift by the Queen of the Sea for his eternal kindness and dedication. The gift was a beautiful pearl box rumored to have come from the mouth of a giant clam. Within it lay a mirror made of the most splendid gold and flanked by the most gorgeous, ethereal mermaid. The mirror is said to predict omens, to protect the king, and to provide visions.

The second king, of the Central Expansion, is said to be the epitome of a ruler, kind and loving to his people but the hardest of punishers to law breakers. On the Day of Reckoning he was bestowed a gift by the Queen of the Sky for his fair rule. The gift was a stunning box made of the tallest oak tree said to brush the clouds. Within it lay a glimmering, silver sword, its breadth narrow and its length long. The handle was the most intricate design forged so delicately that no other could compare. The sword was said to be so light and so sharp that it moved like the wind, able to produce wounds with a mere swipe to the atmosphere.

The third and final king, the king of the South, was a tyrannical ruler hell bent on maintaining order in his kingdom through fear. He was ruthless, ungrateful, and preferred war to peace. On the Day of Reckoning he was bestowed a gift by the Queen of the Underworld in hopes of healing his retched mind. The gift was a box made of glimmering obsidian, a molten glass that came from the heart of the planet. Within it lay a red orb, incandescent and effervescent with a world of unknown, lustrous magic encased within. It is said that the king placed the orb upon his throne, at first in greed, but soon it began to cleanse his heart.

On the night of the Day of Reckoning, a year later, it was said that each king awoke in his own bed to the terror of a disastrous nightmare. Through swift communication they conspired to meet in the Havenwood, an eternal forest in the borderlands separating the North and the Central Expansion. Each eventually arrived alone, carrying their imperial boxes. The first king set down his box and told of his nightmare, of the treachery and evil he'd seen at the behest of the box he'd brought with him. Mystified, the second king set down his box and recounted his nightmare—and the two were one in the same. The third king laid his box on the ground and confirmed that the trio had been plagued by the same prescience.

Suddenly the boxes opened, a bright burst of light blooming before them and briefly blinding the rulers. The mirror, the sword, and the orb rose into the air and attached to one another, suddenly pulled together by an unknown, shatterproof magnetic force. They glowed white hot, shifting and melding into the shape of a lethal glaive. A black mist surged forth from the depths of the boxes, swirling like a cautious poison up the length of the glaive and taking on the shape of a hooded evil. He called himself Death and his shape dissipated as he burst forth and swept across the entirety of the land, killing anything he touched.

The kings, petrified with confusion and fright, could only watch as another box emerged from a warm and buttery light. It was small, white, and glistening like moonbeams, opening of its own volition. Within it lie a chalice and from that chalice rose the shape of a woman with hair of white and porcelain skin. She told the kings to lay rest to their worry, that The World was now in proper order, and that she, the Sempiternal, would cast light upon Death's shadows. She disappeared into silver smoke and covered what Death had touched in a blanket of rebirth.

From that day forward creatures roamed The World but Expressers roamed with them. They coalesced, forming factions to protect the human state, and lived far outnumbered in semi-harmony with the rest of the planet's people…

Our story begins many centuries later. Much of the north had either become a part of the Pocks (a broad cluster of icy islands off of the inlets of the mainland), or was shrouded in the mysterious Trench, a frozen wasteland barely inhabited. However, near the Havenwood many Northern cities thrived. The Central Expansion was a potbellied region harboring most of the planet's metropolises and centrally located cities, the more northern area near the borderland was considered more rural. Separating the Central Expansion from the South was the Desert Belt, a humbly welcoming stretch of land doused in sand. The Eastern South was a heavily traditional strip of land while the Western South was a dangerous swath of marshlands and Riverfolk. It was rumored that magic was rampant there, that a colony of Expressers had inhabited it eons ago and thus it heralded less traffic than any other part of The World.

For the beginning we to take you to the Eastern South, to the happily bumbling town of Juban.

* * *

/ **the comatose catalyst** /

* * *

Since a very young age Amy Clearwater knew _precisely_ what hid in her closet at night. She knew not its name nor from where or whence it hailed, but there were two things she did know: One, it was _definitely_ not human, and two, there was something from her it wanted. Every night she would awake, either from nightmare or invisible urge, to find it watching her. Its eyes were black, no more no less, and its spindly fingers left shadows like barren, harrowed trees on her walls, crawling towards her until they dissipated into darkness. It hid beneath a cloak, tattered and worn, that hung so loosely around its body that she could only imagine its true form to be skeletal. The only things that emerged from within its hunched, hooded form were its beady, black eyes, burning with an unnatural incandescence, and its rawboned, creeping fingers.

Now, Amy was frequented at night by lucid dreaming, the excuse from which she drew reason for the shadow lurking in the corner. At least at first. A nightmare, she'd called it, the boogeyman. But in all her young wisdom, Amy knew that the boogeyman seized children and made them disappear. But her monster, her boogeyman, never laid a finger on her. It only watched intensely, silently, waiting. Waiting for what, she hadn't the faintest clue.

She often visited the garden in her backyard to peer through the white, wooden fence. Its tips peaked just above her tallest height, even on her tippy-toes, so she settled for kneeling to whisper quietly with her neighbor and best friend about this peculiar being. One particular conversation landed on a muggy evening. They were both nine years old, eyes wide with mystery and kneeling knees shivering with both excitement and fear as they gripped the mutual fence and rapidly whispered ideas back and forth.

"Maybe it wants to eat you."

"Maybe it wants my savings…"

"Maybe it wants your soul."

Amy paused, the backyard silent except for the chatter of singing birds and the buzzing of pollinating bees around the rose bushes. Her best friend watched her intensely from the space in the fence, her eyes detailing no joke within them. She was serious. Amy, thought too afraid to admit it, had a sneaking suspicion of the same notion. She dropped her gaze and stared instead at the small, red slippers her anxious toes curled within. There was something far more sinister in the prospect of it taking her soul than it simply eating her. Amy looked up.

"How much do you know about souls?" she asked quietly.

Her best friend scrunched her face. "Not much," she admitted. "I only know what momma says…you know, about how the goods ones go up to heaven and the bad ones go down to…" she peeked around quickly to make sure no one else was in her backyard before leaning in so close that her lips almost touched the wooden fence, "_hell_," she whispered threateningly.

She seemed to think for a moment, as if she wasn't sure she should be telling Amy, before continuing. "And I went into momma's library and found a book, you know, the secret one she pretends doesn't exist under the creaky floorboard." She rolled her eyes and Amy nodded fervently, waiting in anticipation. "Well _it_ had a picture of a creepy monster, kind of like the one you tell me about; a long cloak, really skinny, long fingers, and creepy eyes…you know, kind of like Mary-Ann across the street—"

"Lita!"

"Ok, ok, sorry." Lita rolled her eyes again. "Anyway, you know I'm no good at reading but I did manage to make out that the thing in the cloak has something to do with souls. I wrote down what it says. I want you to read it."

And in a suspiciously clandestine fashion, Lita looked around her backyard, again making sure nobody was on her side of the transaction, before asking Amy to do the same. When it was obvious the coast was clear, Lita snuck closer to the fence until her body was flush against the wood and passed through a small piece of rolled up paper. Amy took it and unrolled the paper, very aware of Lita's cautious whispers that no one else should see it. The first thing Amy noticed was the strange way her friend used slashes to dot her I's before she fully comprehended what the I's were a larger part of;

_O Death_

_No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold, _

_Nothing satisfies me but your soul_

An unwanted chill ran unwarranted down her spine, causing the hairs on Amy's arm to stand full on end despite the summer's muggy, southern air. She looked up from the paper to her window, only now noticing how the protruding bay window took in very little sunlight. And for a split second she thought she saw those beady black eyes, watching her with that repressed hunger. But when she blinked it was gone.

"Lita, I'm scared." Finally Amy felt the culmination of two years anxiety come to fruition. She'd wondered for years what it wanted, why it watched her, and why, God why, didn't it _do _anything? And now she knew, not necessarily what it was or why, per say, but she knew it wanted her soul.

"Don't worry Amy, I came up with a plan. I'm not going to let this thing take your soul."

The fierce resolve in her friend's eyes brought the shivers that were starting to course through her fingers to a simple tremor. "What?" she whispered.

"I have this weird, sneaking suspicion that something is going to happen tonight. Don't ask me why or how I know…I just do." Amy nodded because of, and only because of, the same itchy feeling running through her own body. "Now, make sure that your window is open tonight. I'll keep mine open too. Has it ever approached you before?"

Amy shook her head.

"Ok." Lita put up her finger. "If it approaches you tonight you have to scream. Scream really, really loud and I'll come over. I'll climb that weird vine ladder your momma planted outside your window."

"And then what?" Amy asked.

Lita smirked. "You'll never believe this, Amy, but…" Lita, in that suspicious way of hers, checked _again_ to make sure that her yard was empty. "_I think in an Expresser!"_ she whispered excitedly, her eyes lively with excitement. "Stick your finger through the fence."

Amy was wary. "What are you going to do to me?" she asked cautiously.

"Just do it!"

Amy complied. After a few seconds she pulled her finger back quickly after exclaiming, "ouch!" She grabbed her finger and squeezed it, the tip flourishing with red. "You shocked me! That's your special power? Lita, _I_ can do that!"

"No, you didn't see it! Ugh," Lita groaned. "Amy, look very carefully through the fence. I want to show you this!"

"You're not going to poke me in the eye are you?" Amy asked sarcastically, not wanting to be hurt again.

Lita shook her head. "No Amy, this is how I'm going to protect you." And from Lita's side of the fence Amy began to hear a buzzing. Initially she thought it was a nearby bumblebee. But when the sound persisted and even grew louder, the young girl curiously peered between the fence planks. Lita was holding her fingers about two inches apart, a green, lashing beam of electricity held between them.

"My word, Lita!" Amy whispered astonished, her eyes wide with amazement. Lita immediately pulled her fingers apart and the electricity disappeared.

"I know, shh," she said softly. "You can't tell _anyone_."

"Lita, you could save the _world_ with that!"

"Oh hush," her friend contested. "Now, remember the plan?" Amy nodded. "Good. Let's say a few words of prayer, maybe that will help us." The fence left just enough room for them to press the palms of one of their hands together. They closed their eyes and Lita began to speak. "Dear whoever can hear this," she cleared her throat. "Please keep my best friend Amy safe from harm tonight. Please keep the evil at bay. And I beg to you, with all of my heart, that if something is to happen that I am able to get there in plenty of time to save her." They opened their eyes and watched one another for a moment, the fading sun drenching the earth in a buttery light. Puffs of dandelion seed danced waltzes with bugs as they kneeled in a pregnant pause. And in fierce resolve they sternly spoke the closing to their prayer.

"Amen."

* * *

The night started out silent. The sky was clear and the moon cast an effervescent light through wisps of faded clouds. The bees and the wind had gone to sleep, dandelions staid in the ground and their puffs secured to their stems. As a repercussion the air was thick, heavy with heat and wet with condensation.

Amy, as per the plan, had asked her mother to keep her window open, which would allow Lita easy access to her room. It had taken her a while because of the mugginess in the air but she eventually started to doze off, the melody of bullfrogs and crickets harmonizing into a sweet lullaby that sang her to sleep.

It didn't last long.

Amy awoke to the soft thrum of the grandfather clock downstairs. Its twelve chimes opened her eyes more and more with each deep chord. The last note hung as heavy as the heat in the air, holding long and hard to the atmosphere around it. The night wouldn't have been much different from any other except for the pure, unadulterated silence. Amy's chest felt heavy, every breath felt weighed down by the moist warmth and the deep drum of the grandfather clock.

Everything felt wrong. The silence was deafening. The bullfrogs and crickets had stopped on a dime, notes caught in their throat and frozen by some perpetuating fear. The last note faded to nothingness and all Amy could hear was the rush of blood in her own ears. That is, until one creak came from her closet. The darkness moved there and slowly but surely a shape began to emerge. It was her boogeyman, its spindly fingers reaching out towards her like they always did. But Amy knew that this time was different. And as soon as its cloak, melding with the shadow all around it, broke the breadth of her closet for the very first time, everything changed.

The room turned cold. All of the heat dissipated and the air was dry. The tiny puffs of fearful air Amy huffed came out as smoky tendrils. Lacelike fixtures of frost clambered up her window and cut off the outside world from her view. The full moon filtered in and struck the frost, giving the window a rainbow-esque luminescence that took on a more sinister vibe than one of salvation. But the single window remained open and moonbeams pilfered through, a small square of purity on her now frost-ridden floor. Her boogeyman slid farther into her room, surprisingly leaving a small trail in the frost, and Amy knew it was time.

* * *

Lita jolted from her bed at the sound of a shrill scream. It wasn't one of terror—though perhaps it was laced with fright. She knew it was Amy in an instant. Scrambling to get out of her bed she became tangled in the covers and flopped to the floor in a heap of quilt. Fighting what once kept her safe from her own imagined haunts, Lita twisted and turned until she was free and bolted towards her window.

The first thing she noticed when her hand touched the sill was how slick with dew it was and how surprisingly frigid that dew was in comparison to the muggy night. Keeping note in her head, she slid down the drainage pipe that led from the top of her house past her window, to her mowed lawn. The pipe was too slick, however, and she skidded to the grass harshly before ignoring the pain and hopping over the fence.

But this was impossible to ignore. The ladder was _freezing_. It was caked in frost and sparkled like strewn glitter. Bating her growing suspicion and fear, Lita began to climb, hands raw with cold and her misty breath trailing behind her. Her heart thudded so hard in her chest that she began to feel ill as she approached the last rung. She had no idea what she was in for until she, heaving from effort, threw both arms over Amy's sill and flung herself inside.

After building her courage and detangling herself from her tumble, Lita struck a stance and looked up. Her face went pale. The hero she felt building up inside of her dissipated with her breath. It had turned to her when she'd tumbled to the floor, beady eyes so malevolent that Lita felt she'd been socked in the stomach. It was a sneaking feeling like nothing she'd experienced before. Pins and needles prodded her back so intensely that she sank back down to the floor and an unsightly wave of despair wound thick around her hope.

Slowly it parted from its primary duty and slinked towards her. It didn't glide or float so much as simply appear, phasing out of sight before appearing right in front of her. Its vast cloak nearly covered the expanse of Amy's small room as it draped her in a tent of darkness, what she would have described as its face looming mere inches away from her own.

"_You can see me."_

It hadn't questioned her, but rather stated a curious fact. Lita, mesmerized by its orbital eyes, nodded yes. It hovered over her, encapsulating the young girl in the gloom that was its very being. The glacially cold floor stuck to her hands like a child's tongue to a winter pole and Lita felt trapped. Her mind raced with validations of her own life—she'd lived well, right? She'd done enough as a child to feel fully fulfilled going into the afterlife, right? Because this thing was definitely going to devour her.

But it didn't. It studied her momentarily, perhaps as Lita would have studied a tadpole in the North Side Pond: intensely glaring but markedly inquisitive. Lita almost gagged in fright when it phased sharply back to Amy who, as Lita now noticed, had been staring blankly the entire time. Her mouth hung ajar and her eyes were so blue they glowed sea-like, a beacon in the darkness that now constituted her room. Black met blue and Amy's boogeyman reached out to her, spindly hands appearing like misty shadows, kraken like in their constant movement and effort to touch. Finally they solidified, black and glimmering, steaming like fresh obsidian.

Lita wasn't quite sure what happened next. She would tell people years later, and years after that, that she had blacked out because what occurred was not explicable on any level. At least not to someone who'd never faced the supernatural. Little did she know at that moment that she'd spend the rest of her life trying to reason with, validate, and explain it to herself.

It was as if her body moved of its own accord. Lita's hands tore themselves from Amy's floor just as the creature's glassy talons were centimeters away from palming her friend's face, and slammed them down on the floor in front of her. Her hair blew back as a shockwave of green light exploded from her epicenter, silent and swift barreling through everyone and everything in the room. While it did not prevent the creature's tortuous advances, Amy snapped to. Her eyes blinked once, twice, thrice, before finally coming to rest not on the malevolent mass that hovered before her, but to Lita on her floor.

* * *

A hooded figure shrouded in shadow watched the green light expand over the entirety of the town. It fell in curtains from the sky like a rippling Aurora Borealis. "Something is wrong," she breathed before running straight towards Lita's house.

* * *

"Lita," Amy said, her voice so light it sounded foreign. This was not her Amy, not the Amy she'd prayed with that night, not the Amy she'd known for years. She sounded old, angelic, and ancient. "Your mother…" she said again. Her eyebrows creased and her face grimaced, teeth clenched as if she were going to vomit. Her body jolted, infrequent seizes clutching at her frame as her muscles tightened. Amy's eyes rolled back into her head and her mouth hung agape, the veins in her neck protruding as she tried to forcefully expel something unknown from within her body. And like a snap she erupted into a horrifically two-toned scream. Her mouth stretched to exude one sinister, demonic voice melded with a frightening angelic mottle.

"_PREPAAARE!"_

The creature, with speed unheard of, wrapped its hand around Amy's skull and the scream intensified so loud that Lita had to cover her ears for fear of perforated eardrums. Its other hand hit the floor. Characters, numbers, and symbols flew from its filaments, traveling across the floor, curling up Lita's leg, wrapping around her torso and part of her arms. Lita screamed, trying to get them off of her but they were untouchable. They seared to her body with a white-hot light and the young brunette couldn't stand the intense pain. Eyes sinking, body weary, the last thing she saw was Amy's empty room. Her night-light was on, her floor and walls were clear of frost, and the moonlight bloomed in vivid splendor. Amy was fast asleep in her bed.

* * *

**AN:** Weelllll? What'd you guys think? Exciting or lame? And before you get the wrong impression, no, this story does not center around Lita. However she is going to be the medium through which we meet other characters. Once they are all introduced we will go back to my usual format of everyone involved with heavy light. Hit me with the feedback! Remember! I won't be posting another chapter for quite some time so I'll PM you a response if you review. Thanks guys and happy holidays :D


End file.
